


Wedding Bells

by glorious_spoon



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 22:06:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17434361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: Danny leans against the door frame, rubs a hand over his face, and says, “Grace thinks we should get married.”“Okay,” Steve says easily, pulling the fridge open. “You want breakfast?”





	Wedding Bells

**Author's Note:**

  * For [squidgie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/squidgie/gifts).



It starts when he and Grace are both over at Steve’s, which is where they mostly end up these days even though the couch in Steve’s living room is a bona fide torture device that’s probably in violation of the Geneva Conventions. Despite this, Danny has somehow managed to oversleep. Grace is wide awake, fully dressed and applying sparkly lip gloss in the mirror by the door by the time he manages to peel his head off the pillow, glance at the clock, and swear. “Shit.”

“Swear jar,” Grace sings, popping the cap back on her lip gloss and dropping it in her bag.

“Yeah, yeah, put it on my tab,” Danny grumbles. “Sorry. Just give me a second and we can hit the road.”

“It’s cool,” Grace says cheerfully. “Zach is picking us up, he just texted.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Who is this Zach joker and why does he think I’m going to let my sixteen-year-old daughter get into a car with him, huh?”

Grace rolls her eyes, swinging her bag onto her shoulder. “You’re so overprotective. He’s Hannah’s older brother, you’ve met him before. He’s giving her a ride too, it’s not like we’re going to be alone, _relax._ ”

“Don’t you tell me to relax, young lady,” Danny says, heaving himself off of the couch. His back cracks painfully, just to remind him— in case the goddamn _teenager_ in front of him hadn’t already— that he’s getting old. God, he’s old, and Grace is the spitting image of her mother twenty years ago, and it’s too damn early for this. “Also, I’m not overprotective. I’m exactly the right amount of protective, and if you think I’m letting you ride to school with some random horny college guy—”

“He’s _gay_ , Dad.”

Danny blinks. “What?”

“He proposed to his boyfriend last week. They’re very sweet together. Kind of like you and Uncle Steve, actually.”

“That still doesn’t mean that— what did you just say?”

“You guys should think about tying the knot too, you know,” Grace says. “It’s been like forever.”

“I,” Danny says. “ _What?_ ”

A car horn blares outside. Grace leans to look out the window, waves. “That’s them. I have to go.”

“Just hang on a second,” Danny begins, but before he can get any farther than that, she leans in to kiss his cheek and darts out the door, tossing a breezy “Bye, Danno!” over her shoulder.

“Text me when you get to school,” Danny yells after her, and gets a quick agreeable flip of a hand as she slides into the backseat of the little Toyota parked out front.

The car pulls away from the curb. Danny shuts the door, sinks down on the couch, and puts his hands over his face. He stays there for quite some time.

*

After a while, he hears Steve’s door creak open, then shut. Then footsteps on the stairs, soft on the wood floor, and Steve’s bare feet enter his field of vision. There’s a long, loaded silence, and then Steve says, carefully, “Are you okay?”

Danny looks up at him. The morning sunlight catches on the flecks of gray in his stubble, his blue-green eyes, the laugh lines at the corners of his mouth. There’s a crease on his cheek from his pillow and the t-shirt he’s wearing looks sleep-warm and rumpled, the material worn thin and stretched over his broad shoulders, and Danny is an idiot, he’s such a fucking idiot, how is this his life.

He drops his face into his hands. “I’m having an existential crisis. Please go away.”

Another long pause. “You’re having a _what?_ ”

“An existential crisis, Steven, I’m having a crisis, one which does not require your input, thank you!”

Steve, because he’s Steve, doesn’t do the polite thing and fuck off to let Danny hyperventilate in peace. Instead, he sinks down on the cushion next to him and settles a warm hand on his shoulder. “Is this about Grace?”

“Tangentially, yes.”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s fine. She’s wonderful, she’s catching a ride to school with some college student I’ve never met, but apparently that’s okay because he’s gay.” Danny pauses, takes a breath. “I need coffee.”

“Coffee I can do.” Steve pats his shoulder and stands, moving into the kitchen. Danny watches him walk away, the smooth play of muscle beneath his shirt and the curve of his ass in soft gray sweatpants, and then he tears his gaze away before he can develop an awkward boner like the horny college student he hasn’t been in twenty years.

Jesus Christ, how is this his life.

After a minute or so of Steve clattering comfortably around the kitchen, Danny gets up and follows him in. The percolator is hissing softly, filling the air with the pleasant smell of coffee, and Steve is pulling mismatched mugs out of the cupboard.

Danny leans against the door frame, rubs a hand over his face, and says, “Grace thinks we should get married.”

“Okay,” Steve says easily, pulling the fridge open. “You want breakfast?”

“Do I want— did you hear a word I just said? Grace thinks we should get married, you and me, wedded bliss, nuptials, is any of this registering with you?”

“I heard you,” Steve says. He’s leaning half into the fridge, rooting through its no doubt disgustingly healthy contents. “I think I have some pesto and feta left. I can make omelets if you want.”

Danny squints at him, momentarily derailed. “Are these hypothetical omelets going to contain any actual eggs?”

“Egg whites are better for you, Danny. I’ve seen your physicals. You need to watch your cholesterol.”

“Egg whites from a carton are an affront against decency and good taste.”

“I’m going to remind of you of this conversation when you end up needing triple bypass surgery by next year because you don’t eat right.”

“Steve,” Danny says, “if I have a massive coronary at forty-three, eggs or the lack thereof are not going to be the cause, believe me.”

Steve flashes him a grin, sudden and brilliant, and it’s like getting punched in the solar plexus, because how has he not noticed this, he’s a cop, he’s a _good_ cop, he is observant, he is—

He is a fucking idiot, that’s what he is. It’s not just that the guy’s good-looking; Danny has eyes, thank you very much. If he was going to suddenly develop a hopeless crush on Lieutenant Commander Steven Jack McGarrett, the appropriate time for it would have been eight fucking years ago, maybe the first time he saw the guy emerging shirtless from the ocean with water droplets clinging to his hair and eyelashes and perfect abs. Not now. Not with close to a decade’s worth of experience of exactly how _fucked in the head_ Steve is under all that pretty packaging.

“So, omelets,” Steve says, and Danny sighs, waves his hand, collapses in front of the coffee cup on the table and pushes both hands into his hair.

“Omelets,” he says. “Sure.”

“I would marry you, you know,” Steve says a few minutes later, dropping a plate in front of him and turning back to the stove.

“Yeah, I’m sure you’d be a great trophy wife, at least I know you can cook,” Danny says, and picks up his fork. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously.” Steve is still facing away from him, but there’s something in his voice, the set of his shoulders, something that makes Danny bite back the snide retort already half-formed on his tongue.

“What’s that supposed to mean, huh?” he asks instead. It comes out softer than he means it to.

Steve lets out a breath of laughter and doesn’t turn. “You’re not that dense.”

“Just for a second, let’s pretend that I am.” Danny takes a breath, sets his fork down. The clink of metal on porcelain sounds suddenly very loud. “Explain it to me. Please.”

Steve takes a deep breath, lets it out noisily, and turns. He looks more like a man facing a firing squad than a guy standing in his own kitchen with the smell of coffee warm in the air, his nostrils flaring as he takes another short breath and says, “Look, Danny, just forget about it.”

And just like that, Danny gets it.

“Oh,” he says. “I’m an idiot.”

“I mean, I wasn’t gonna say anything,” Steve says, but he’s relaxing, turning to shut the coffee maker off and pull the carafe out. Clearly he thinks that this conversation is over now, which means that Danny isn’t the only idiot in this room. That’s reassuring. He pushes his chair out and crosses the room, settling his hip against the counter. Steve gives him a sidelong look. “What?”

“Such an idiot,” Danny says.

“Which one of us are you talking about again?”

“Take your pick,” Danny says, and maybe they ought to talk about this a little more, but really, what’s the point? He’ll have plenty of time later to talk Steve’s ear off, but for now, he settles his hand against Steve’s warm, stubbled cheek and says, “Hey. Come here, you goof.”

There’s a part of him, an anxious adolescent part of him that half-expects Steve to rear back, to flinch away from his hands, to laugh in his face or something, but that doesn’t happen. What happens is this: Steve’s eyes flutter shut, and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows convulsively, and he dips his head willingly when Danny tugs him down to kiss him squarely on the mouth.

It’s been a while since he’s done this. Okay, it’s been a while since he’s kissed _anybody_ , and a hell of a lot longer than that since that anybody was a guy, and Steve is stupidly tall besides, but after a flailing second where he doesn’t seem to know where to put his hand, he settles it on Danny’s hip, warm and solid through the waistband of his sweatpants and tilts his head, turning what had been a fairly innocent kiss into something slick and wet and dirty. Danny slips him some tongue in revenge, and Steve makes a low, shocked noise that might just be the best thing he’s heard in years. By the time they finally break apart, he’s more than a little out of breath.

Steve looks poleaxed. Danny pats his cheek, grinning, and says, “We’re not getting married. I am not that easy, do you understand me? I expect to be wooed.”

“Wooed,” Steve says blankly. Then he blinks, shakes his head, and smiles, sudden and bright. Lifts the full carafe of coffee that he has somehow managed not to drop this whole time. “We could start with coffee?”

Danny looks at the coffee pot, and then back at Steve’s hopeful face, and he finds himself laughing, leaning up for another kiss, a quick comfortable one like they’ve been doing this for years instead of for five minutes. When they break apart this time, Steve is grinning too. Danny pats his cheek again and says, “Coffee is a fantastic place to start.”


End file.
